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Goals Conceded Likelihood

Having generated some expected save numbers with my new model, I thought it’d be interesting to see who has been dodging their luck so far this season. So given each team’s shots against and average xS, it’s easy to simulate the likelihood that each team’s goals conceded should be where it is or better:

Team

Shots

Condeded

xS

Likelihood

Tottenham Hotspur

32

5

77%

22%

Arsenal

41

8

74%

24%

Crystal Palace

42

8

77%

34%

Manchester City

24

8

75%

87%

Manchester United

33

9

68%

36%

Swansea City

36

9

75%

57%

Liverpool

30

10

70%

72%

Watford

38

10

68%

30%

Stoke City

47

10

70%

12%

Everton

43

11

72%

44%

West Bromwich Albion

42

11

75%

66%

Southampton

27

13

64%

93%

West Ham United

47

14

66%

34%

Aston Villa

46

15

76%

92%

Leicester City

42

17

65%

83%

Bournemouth

35

17

59%

85%

Newcastle United

54

18

71%

81%

Sunderland

52

19

69%

84%

Chelsea

53

20

66%

77%

Norwich City

45

20

60%

79%

So of the teams with the tightest defences, only Man City can really be trusted so far. Further down, Everton are outperforming by a goal or so, and the West Ham number sticks out, especially given that they’re this season’s most popular football analytics whipping-boy. They’re actually only a couple of shots better off than they should be, but because they’re facing tougher shots, the distribution is wider:

Near the other end of the spectrum, my model’s pretty confident that things aren’t going to get worse at Aston Villa – they’re currently four goals down from where they likely should be: